


and bays at the moon

by Merricat_Blackwood



Series: if you could only see the beast you've made of me [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Daydreaming, F/M, Unrequited Lust, Unresolved Sexual Tension, sandor's brain is not a healthy place to be but he means well, sappy sandor, there is no sex in this just thoughts about sex, this is less a story and more a ramble of Sandor's thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-18 21:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3584103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merricat_Blackwood/pseuds/Merricat_Blackwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The lesson he learned that day with his face in the fire, the lesson that he has never forgotten was simply this: having something is never worth the cost of taking it. He could not hope to keep her if he tried, so he is content to simply want. He can live with the sweet stabbing pains of wanting her. Wanting, after all, will not kill him. If he were ever to give into his wildest desires, and simply take her, then he would surely die.</p><p>That alone might not be enough to stop him ... but then she would die too." </p><p>Sandor daydreams about Sansa.  About the things he wants to do for her.  About the things he wants to take, and the ones he longs to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and bays at the moon

He can't remember the last time he truly wanted something, until her.

Hells, for all that he can remember, the last thing he really wanted enough to take it was that bloody toy knight. That was over twenty years ago now, and he learned his lesson well enough.

The lesson he learned that day with his face in the fire, the lesson that he has never forgotten was simply this: having something is never worth the cost of taking it. He could not hope to keep her if he tried, so he is content to simply want. He can live with the sweet stabbing pains of wanting her. Wanting, after all, will not kill him. If he were ever to give into his wildest desires, and simply take her, then he would surely die.

That alone might not be enough to stop him ... but then she would die too.

He calls her little bird, but he knows better than anyone else in this whole damned city that she is a wolf. Oh, she hides her teeth and shows her belly; she keeps herself looking docile for the benefit of the lions ... but he'll never forget the day that the boy king took her to the wall of spikes to make her look at her father's head. Sometimes, even thinking about it now makes him feel cold. The little bird would have pushed Joff to his own death that day, if he had not barred her way. The king would have died, but so would she, and that was what he thought of when he stepped forward and blocked her path. There'd been winter in her pretty blue eyes that day, and it had nearly come for her and the boy king both, but he had stopped it.

Sometimes, he can't help but wonder if in saving her from herself that day, he's merely helped to doom her to a slower death, a harder fall.

They will not be content to let her beat her wings against the bars of her cage forever. Lions are cruel, and they like to play with their food, but eventually they will get hungry. Eventually they will taste her blood.

 _You're no better, dog,_ he growls to himself when his imagination gets the best of him, whenever he pictures himself riding off with her holding onto his waist, when he fancies she might favor him with a quick soft kiss to the good side of his face. (Even in his imagination, she does not want to touch his burns). _You think she would ever favor you with anything but the back of her hand, if she was feeling daring?_

It doesn't stop him, though. The sweet sickness of wanting has taken too deep a root. He would gladly welcome a slap or a kick or a curse from her, so long as it meant she did not live and walk in dread of him. So long as she did not always raise those blue eyes to his face for the shortest of seconds before turning sharply away, as though wishing him out of her world. He can almost smell her fear, and he hates it. Ever since he first took up a sword, people have been afraid of him, and he thought he didn't care. He even thought that he liked being feared, that he relished the way people scattered before him or stammered their words or couldn't meet his eyes. But now that he's met somebody he actually wants to _see_ him, she won't bloody _look._

Gods, he wants her. And not just in the usual way a man wants a beautiful girl. Oh, he wants her in that way too, no mistake about that; he pictures her on top of him and under him, though always with a woman's face, and a woman's figure, fuller than the one she has now, and – folly of all follies – he imagines her wanting him, too. He never dreams her unwilling. He dreams her hungry, ravenous, wild, free. He dreams her eyes bright, her mouth eager. He dreams her saying his name with the same fervency she says her prayers. He wants to make her scream. He wants to fuck her, but that is not what scares him. What sends him off cursing, in search of sour wine and cheap whores, are the other things he wants from her, for her.

He wants to protect her, shield her. He does his best, but it's never enough; to stand between her and the king with his sword drawn would be certain death, and he wants to be stronger, strong enough that it wouldn't even matter if he died as long as it was done in defense of her, but this isn't a fucking song and he isn't a fucking knight, and all that would happen if he died for her is that he'd be dead, and she'd have no one at all. So all he can do is watch from a distance, all he can do is say _“enough”_ and hope that his little shit of a king listens. But damn him, he wants to be her hero.

He wishes for smaller things too, simpler things. He wants to touch her hair, to feel it slide through his rough fingers like the softest silk. He wants to hear her voice, speaking to him, saying anything, anything at all but her hollow little courtesies. He wants to watch her lips speak truths: only truths, to only him. He wants to see that pretty mouth say dirty words and watch those pretty cheeks blush red for it.

He wants to see her smile. He wants to hear her laugh. It would be enough to hear her laugh, a real laugh, a true laugh, from her heart. But what he really wishes is to be the one to make her laugh, to be the one to draw that sound from her, and therein lies the danger. One is unlikely and the other is unthinkable. How could he be the one to melt her heart? Why should she smile at him, let alone laugh for him?

Let alone _sing_ for him?

The sickness grows stronger with every passing day. He starts to think the king will notice where his eyes are wandering. _Keep your head down, dog,_ he reminds himself, _unless you want to lose it, and maybe get the little bird killed too for your stupidity._ But these thoughts are nothing more than paranoia. The boy king is too caught up in his shiny new crown and his shiny new power to notice where his hound is sniffing.

The real question is, does the girl notice?

He's beginning to think that she might.

It's in the way she looks away from him, each time with more determination than the last, each time with pink in her cheeks. It's also in the way she does look at him, when she does. The way she forces herself to meet his eyes, longer and longer each time. He thinks he sees her knowledge of his feelings in the part of her lips, the flutter of her lashes, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, before she mutters pleasant farewells and flees as fast is as polite.

It isn't much. But when you've been living on scraps as long as the Hound has, even the smallest of gestures tastes like a feast. Even the quickest of glances is enough to punch him in the heart with something that feels suspiciously like hope.

So every time he sees the little bird, his mind runs away with him …

… and his heart gives chase, and bays at the moon.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first ASOIAF fic I've written, but hopefully not the last! There is a part 2 of this series in the works from Sansa's POV, and then, possibly, a 3rd in which the daydreams become reality. Anyway, I'm really nervous about this one, and feedback would be deeply appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
